Descriptions of Speech Acts

This site provides a collection of descriptions of speech acts as revealed through empirical research. The material is designed to help language teachers and advanced learners to be more aware of the sociocultural use of the language they are teaching or learning. It is also an empirical resource for materials developers to base their future materials on for second language learners.

Speech Acts

Below is a list of speech acts that have been researched at CARLA. Within each category you will find basic information about the speech act, as well as teaching tips, sample exercises, and past research findings.

Apologies
Complaints
Compliments/Responses
Refusals
Requests
Thanks

Contribute to this site...
Teachers, researchers, and material developers are invited to use the data presented here and to submit empirical examples of speech acts to add to this collection. Contributions can be made in one or more of the following ways:

1. by providing an abstract of the study for our bibliography,
2. by providing us with examples of data that could be added to the descriptions of our six featured speech acts,
3. by suggesting information from your study which could appear in the additional details section for empirical underpinnings.

Drafts should be sent to Noriko Ishihara at ishi0029@umn.edu for consideration. It is the hope of the developers that this site will grow over the next few years and will become a resource for those interested in teaching and researching speech acts.

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This site has been developed by Noriko Ishihara and edited by Anne Fretheim under the direction of Professor Andrew Cohen with support from the Digital Media Center at the University of Minnesota.